Week of 1.26.2020
The Spectator
founded 2004 by ron cruger
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by Laramie Boyd
America the Beautiful
Your comments about this column are welcome ~ e-mail Laramie at
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C
An article in the January 24th edition of the Desert Sun newspaper, based in Palm Springs, California, by
Jonathan Zimmerman, is worth reading. It seems very prejudicially unbiased, biased impartially. The headline is "GOP in the tank for
Trump, but Democrats aren't impartial either".
When a controversial political issue comes up in a class he
is teaching, Mr. Zimmerman always starts the discussion with a question to his students. "What evidence would get you to change your
mind?" And if they can't answer that, he says, "We're done talking". As what good is spending time merely expressing opinions back
and forth, often ending up in heated and/or insulting raised voices, neither side ever giving in or retracting their position. In
fact, many times the opponents fail to even admit that their point of view is just an opinion. Rather, that they have a corner on
the "truth" in the discourse. If there is nothing that one side could say that would change the mind of the other, move on.
In the current "trial" of President Donald Trump, it doesn't take a genius, if one watches and listens carefully, to realize that
when the Democrats offer their reasons to impeach the President, the Republicans have already made up their mind to not impeach, and
the Republicans dialogue on why not to impeach falls on the deaf ears of the Democrats. And guess what. If either side was asked the
question, "What evidence would get you to change your mind?", you can bet the answers would coincide perfectly. Nothing! Unless of
course either side wanted to mouth some bit of evidence that they knew would not or could not be offered, merely to give the impression
of impartiality rather than a real belief in unbiased consideration.
Would it be wrong to say that the Democratic
Representatives and Senators made up their minds the day Donald trump was elected President. They did not need a trial. And concurrently,
the Republicans were ready to veto any impeachment proceedings the moment Nancy Pelosi spoke the words in the House. The words of
the Constitution of the United States, saying impeachment proceedings can proceed for "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and
misdemeanors" were summarily ignored as each side had different definitions for such things
In his article,
Mr. Zimmerman wished that, pre trial, the judges of the existence of impeachable offenses, could have been asked the question. "What
evidence would get you to change your mind." I'll wager the number of answers would be embarrassing. He also admitted that he "thinks"
Donald trump should be removed. But he keeps an open mind for "new arguments", before closing his mind. And he admits that but "If
I can't, I'm no better than Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham. And, "Neither are you".